Morbid - Episode 105: June and Jennifer Gibbons- The Silent Twins

Episode Date: December 9, 2019

Episode Supported by Ned! www.helloned.com/MORBID Use Code “MORBID” for 15% off your order It's an Ash Mini Solo Morbid today! Due to some serious mom commitments, Alaina had to step away and it is an Ash's spooky time to shine as she covers the bizarre, sad and fascinating case of June and Jennifer Gibbons AKA The Silent Twins. This case begs the question: Do twins have some kind of deeper, more magical connection than any of us can comprehend? If so, when left unchecked, is it dangerous? The New Yorker article Ash recommends for a deeper look into this case: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/12/04/we-two-made-one Go to DailyHarvest.com and enter promo code MORBID to get $25 off your first box!  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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That's ANGI, or download the app today. Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. Alina couldn't be here. And this is a mini morbid. Mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, more bad. Mini, more, mini, more bad. Mini, more bad.

So yeah guys, this is real weird. I am currently sitting in the pod lab by myself about to record this episode. One of Alina's little nuggets is sick right now and she really like really wouldn't have been able to sit in on this episode because she's being a mom and doing the mom thing because she's a fucking rock star. So I'm sorry if this is super weird. I'm literally just sitting in the pod lab talking to myself, which feels super strange. But without further ado, since there's no one here to a small talk with, maybe I should just pull up my Google doc and get into this. So this is my first solo mini morbid, and I really hope you guys don't hate me for doing

a solo mini morbid. This week I'm going don't hate me for doing a solo mini morbid. This week I'm going to talk to you guys about the silent twins. I have been wanting to cover this case forever. I remember the first time I heard this case, I was like what the actual fuck this case is bananas. It's not a murder really and it's not like a serial killer but it is morbidly strange. So without further ado, the silent twins, Jennifer and June Gibbons were born in Aiden, which is located in the Middle East to their mother Gloria and

their father, Audrey Gibbons. The girls were born on April 11, 1963. Gloria and Aubrey were from Barbados, but after June and Jennifer were born, they moved to Wales. I'm going to try to say this town the best I can. I want to say it's Haviford West to be exact. That's where they lived in Wales. So growing up, the girls were really shy to other people. They didn't like to interact much with the kids around them. They didn't really like to interact with anybody around them except themselves. They did have siblings. They had an older sister, Greta, an older brother, David, and eventually they would gain a younger sister named Rosie, who they would talk to Rosie, but she was really the...

I don't even know if they would really talk to her, but they would interact with her. She was really the only other person that they paid attention to. June was technically... Sorry, I just made a really gross mouth-noise line on my apologies. June was technically older than Jennifer. I read somewhere by 10 minutes, but what's interesting is that Jennifer was seen as the more dominant one between the two of them. When they were really little, like toddlers, it was really clear to their parents that they were

going to have some kind of speech problem. Their mom sat in an interview in the home they talk, they'd make sounds and all that, but we knew they weren't quite like, you know, normal children talking rapidly. So like I said, they would really only talk to each other, and most of the time nobody even understood what they were saying to each other, because they talked so fast, it was almost like they had this secret language between each other. They also did this thing where one of them would start to do some kind of movement, and the other would finish what the first twin had started doing. They were always in sync, like always 100% in sync. One of them would walk in front of the other one and the other would be behind

them and their steps would be in perfect synchronicity, which is a lane, a lane, a lane, a lane, how to say that earlier because I was like, how the fuck do I say that? So I hope I said that correctly. Thanks a lot, I love you. When someone would kind of do a double take to look at them, like, holy fuck, they're in perfect sync-redicity, hope I said that right again. They would literally just freeze there

and stare at that person until that person just went about their business. At the time when the girls lived in Wales, unfortunately, it was a super racist scene. They were the only people of color in their neighborhood, and I'm pretty sure they were the only people of color in their school. And at school, they were bullied so badly. Like, I'm talking other kids pulling out their hair, which is the most disgusting thing. I can't even put myself in that in that time, because I just don't understand how humans treat other humans like that.

But they were bullied so badly. Like I said, they had to be sent home early. They had to leave school like five minutes early every day to get ahead of all the other kids that were going to leave so that they wouldn't be subject to like this horrible torture. The girls parents tried sending them to speech therapists, regular therapists, pretty much anyone that was willing to see them to get to the bottom of the case of what they became known as the silent twins. But they wouldn't speak to the therapists and actually they wouldn't even speak to each other in front of the therapists. Really, the only thing that the therapists could get them to do was to read on tape and only when the therapist left the room

That's how therapist and Trayhaar and I'm gonna say She was the chief speech therapist at Haviford West With the Bush hospital. She discovered their secret language wasn't actually a made-up language It was a mixture of Barbados slang and English Just sped up so quickly that other people could not make up with the twins we're saying to each other. So it wasn't a fake language, a made up language, but it really was their kind of language to talk to each

other. And at one point said she felt as though Jennifer was able to control or possess June through what June referred to as at eye language. The only person they would ever talk to other than themselves, like I said before, was their little sister Rosie, who could sometimes decode what they were saying. They wouldn't talk to their parents, they didn't talk to their older siblings, they would literally just sit at the family dinner table

in silence while their whole family would just try to act normal and kind of go about dinner and maybe hope that they would chime in at some point, but obviously they didn't. And their older sister, Greta, would be so overwhelmed by this that she would start to cry. So obviously their parents were genuinely concerned. So when they were advised by the girls' multiple therapists, that they should be sent to separate boarding schools, they were like,

yeah, if it's going to work, we hope it does, like let's try it. When the girls found out that they were going gonna be separated, they lost their fucking noodles. I'm talking they were screaming, they were crying, for some reason, they were hitting each other, one was digging their nails into the other, and June even pulled out a huge chunk of Jennifer's hair. Then they ran out of the therapist's office while doing all of this. I'm sure it was a horrific scene as a parent, as a therapist, as a fucking passerby, as anybody. They both responded the exact same way. And isolated themselves even further than they did when they were together. They went, I'm talking when they got moved to the separate boarding schools, that's what

they did. They just totally isolated themselves to the point where they. That's what they did. They just totally isolated themselves. To the point where they would just lay there, like they were in a coma or something, but obviously they were not. Anybody that tried to move them said that they were totally dead weight and it was impossible to get them to move, like next to impossible. Since separating them obviously was not working, their parents and therapists were like, yep, cool, never mind. This is worse than we thought that it could ever be, and this is probably just not fixables, so y'all can just get reunited. And that's actually direct quote.

That's what everybody on the scene said. You know, I'm totally kidding, it's not. And there's no one here to laugh at my jokes, so I feel weird about it, whatever. And Miss DeBelayna. Anyways, when the girls did come together again, they seemed better, but they still weren't into communicating with anyone outside in the world around them or even their other family members.

They always hung out around their room doing weird shit. I found an article from the New Yorker, which I got a lot of my information from this article and you guys should all go read it if you're interested in this case because it goes super, super in depth. Elena probably is going to edit this, so I'm going to give it goes super, super in depth. Alaina probably is gonna edit this, so I'm gonna give it to her to put in the show notes. You can find the link to the New Yorker article. It's serious, they goes super in depth.

It was so interesting to read. But I read in there that Jennifer would say to June, she was June, and they would take turns being each other. And when they wanted to be themselves again, they would say, give me back myself. If you give me back myself, I'll give you back yourself, which I'm just like, what's like that is creepy. And I don't understand.

Like I just want to be ash. I don't want to be anybody else. I'm afraid. The girls spent their days playing with dolls and writing some really creepy one might even say morbid fiction stories. They would write stories about their dolls and they would be sure to include the dolls' death date specifically and how each and every single one of them died. They created almost like families with these dolls. Yeah, you know, like just typical

kid shit. Like you always wrote down when your Barbie doll was dying and what she was dying of, right? No, not me, not me, wrong. I'm sorry, but if I found backstories with causes of death for dolls in my kids' room someday, I would give them back and my uber would be peeling down the fucking street. But their parents sounded like they were super accommodating because they probably had no idea what else to possibly do. I mean, the twins wouldn't even eat meals at the family table at this point. They, all their food had to be sent up to their room and left on trays outside their door. When the girls weren't busy writing creepy doll novels, they would write in their journals,

which their mom gave to them for Christmas, hoping that they would somehow like self-identify and maybe separate from each other. Oftentimes, they wrote about each other, so obviously, it wasn't working. Jennifer wrote in her diary at one point, quote, We have become fatal enemies in each other's eyes. We feel the irritating deadly rays come out of our bodies stinging each other's skin. I say to myself, can I get rid of my own shadow, impossible or not possible? Without my shadow, would I die?

Without my shadow, would I gain life? Be free or left to die? Without my shadow, what I die without my shadow, what I gain life, be free or left to die without my shadow, which I identify with a face of misery, deception, murder. Like, oh, that's light and uplifting, I love that. Just kidding, it's dark and scary and I hate it. What if you were trafficked into a cult over shot nine, or fell in love with a vampire, or went into a minor surgery and woke up one week later, paralyzed. What would you do? I'm Whit Missaldine, the creator of this is actually happening, a podcast from Wondry

that brings you extraordinary true stories of life-changing events, told by the people who lived them. From a young man that dooms his entire future with one choice, to a woman who survived a notorious serial killer, you'll hear their first-person account of how they overcame remarkable circumstances. Each episode is an exploration of the human spirit and personal discovery. These haunting accounts sound like Hollywood movies, but I assure you this is actually happening. Followed this is actually happening wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wundery app.

June once wrote of Jennifer, quote, nobody suffers the way I do. Not with a sister. With a husband, yes, with a wife, yes, with a child, yes. But this sister of mine, a dark shadow robbing me of sunlight is my one and only torment. She also wrote one time, quote, she wants us to be equal. There is a murderous gleam in her eye. Dear Lord, I am scared of her. She is not normal. Someone is driving her insane. It is me. So you know just typical sister stuff and also Imagine if they ever you know like obviously I think a lot of siblings I never did this because I didn't totally grow up with siblings really but I know siblings steal each other's diaries Can you imagine stealing your sister's diary and you read all this horrible shit about yourself? But like, it's like dark and scary and it's like she is my shadow and she

has a murderous gleam in her eye. I'm just scared of this whole entire thing. So at this point, you're probably like, wow, this pot is really starting to boil over and you, my weirdos, are absolutely right. Because June and Jennifer were clearly starting to piss each other off. They had been spending a shit done of time together and it was about to happen. So so much so that one time Jun tried to kill Jennifer by drowning her. They would get into these violent fights with each other that would lead to strangling, hitting, and apparently attempted drowning. But the weird thing is that as much as they fought like savages, they would calm down and come together again. And when they became teenagers, they started experimenting with marijuana

and alcohol, which honestly is confusing to me because I'm like, how did you purchase the weed if you didn't talk to people or like communicate with anybody at all? But whatever, that's beside the point, I guess. The first time they broke into somebody's house, it was an old classmate of theirs. His name was Lance Kennedy, and they remembered that he had stuck up for them in the school years when other people were like absolutely horrible to them. I'm not sure if they went to his house in hopes that they would run into him, or if they were hoping that they could just like snoop around his bedroom, or what the fuck they really wanted to do. But when they got there to his house, nobody was home,

but the door to the home was open. So they went in there, they like, one about their business, they like snooped around, I don't fucking know. And then Lance's parents got home. But the parents felt bad and let June and Jennifer go. Even though they had, oh, broken a door while they were in there, gone through the clothes belonging to Lance's brothers, turns out Lance himself had actually moved away at this point. And the parents were like, trying to get information out of them like, hello, why are you in our fucking house? Like, why did you do this? And they just were staring back at them or like looking at the floor, not responding to them because they were the silent twins.

They didn't talk. So the parents were like, okay, whatever, like you can just go. They moved away from their obsession with Lance and eventually settled on his brothers who they began to hang out with a lot. And that's kind of when a lot more of like the smoking and drinking started, they would get like super dolled up to hang out with these guys. They'd bring a bottle of whatever. And I think they would talk to these guys. Eventually, Jennifer lost her virginity to Lance's younger brother, Carl, and she wrote about it in her diary.

I don't have a direct quote, but I do know that she lost her virginity to Carl in a church not too far from his house, and that June was there to watch, which is really just too much for my brain to process, and I don't want to talk about it anymore. Hey there, fellow podcast listener, it's Elena. And Ash, and we're taking you back to the days before streaming services. Whoa. You know, when you would come home from high school,

and it was only a few hours until that TV show everyone was watching was about to come on? Well in 1999, that show was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In our podcast with Wondery, the re-watcher Buffy the Vampire Slayer, we take it back to 1999. So, get out your knee-high boots and paste that poster of Angel on the Wall. It's time to enter the Buffyverse. Some of you avid morbid listeners already know what we've gotten store.

Join us. Join us as we sway our way through Buffy's drama, action, and romance. Episode by episode. Slay see. Follow the rewatcher Buffy the Vampire Slayer wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Jennifer and June were really embracing this whole teen rebellion thing. They were running around playing Ding Dong Ditch, they were spray painting

graffiti. Oh and they also tried this fun new activity called Burning Down Properties. Oh, and they also tried this fun new activity called burning down properties. Yep, not kidding. Together they burned down a tractor store. They burned down the Pembroke Technical College, which is actually how they got caught and arrested. And so they were arrested at age 19 for this. And Judge committed them to Broadmore Hospital, which is a psychiatric hospital in England. Broadmore Hospital is really one of the most well-known psychiatric hospitals in England, and it has a bunch of infamous patients, including the Yorkshire Ripper spook, fucking spook. So, June and Jennifer lived in Broadmore for 11 to 12 years, and throughout that time they were

studied by a ton of experts that had never encountered anyone before like the twins. When anyone would try to separate them, they would go fucking bananas. But other than that, they were like super weird specific pose and in a completely separate room in a completely different part of the hospital. At the exact same time, the other twin would be found doing the exact same creepy weird pose. They would also do this thing where one of them would eat like a ton of food and the other would barely eat anything at all. And then they would just switch off. June even attempted suicide at one point while they were at Broadmoor. They were just like, it should got crazier when they got there.

So then this journalist, Marjorie Wallace, was working for the Sunday Times and she became interested in the case of the Silent Twins. She began spending a ton of time silent twins. She began spending a ton of time with them. She read most of their diaries after she kind of gained the trust of their parents, the parents handed over the diaries. She read their works of fiction, and she just pretty much tried to interview them. Marjory is really the person that got a lot of awareness out about the case. And throughout her time with the twins, she came to the conclusion that they really weren't

the psychopaths everybody thought they were, and they really were amazing writers. It also became clear that the twins felt trapped within each other, and they both agreed that one of them would have to die for the other to have any chance at living a free life. And at almost 30 years old, after spending nearly 12 years at Bromor Hospital, the silent twins were to be released to a more minimum security hospital, which was in Wales. It was the morning of March 9, 1993, and on the bus ride there, Jennifer laid down on June and she said, at long last were out. The areas part of that fucking statement is that it's the last fucking thing Jennifer ever said to June. At long last were out.

That night she died of an apparent inflammation of the heart, even though she had no previous heart condition on record. There was nothing found in her system to indicate any kind of overdose, any poisoning, anything like that. She just suddenly passed away. June said that she felt free at last and liberated, and she knew that Jennifer gave up her life for her. She thinks the only explanation is that Jennifer willed herself to die. June went through a period of grief, of course, but then she went on to live her life to the fullest for the both of them, she says. She was released from the psychiatric care of that hospital shortly after Jennifer's death,

and she really went on to live a pretty normal life. Like she didn't talk, she wasn't super, super outgoing, but she talked to people and she went about her fucking business. super, super outgoing, but she talked to people and she went about her fucking business. And she wrote the poem that is inscribed on Jennifer's headstone that reads, we once were two, we two made one, we know more to the life be one, rest in peace. And that is the case of the silent twins. It is absolutely bonkers and like I said if you want more information about it you should definitely check out that New Yorker piece because it goes like crazy crazy in depth. It is so interesting to read and this was your ash solo mini morbid. Maybe now I will start to do more of these. I will

well probably not that many more because it's really weird to be sitting in this pod lab without Elena. But this was pretty fun. And if it ever needs to happen again, I am willing to do more of these. So yeah, I hope you keep listening and I hope you keep it weird. Goodbye! good bye! Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Morvid, Early, and Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen Add Free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.